Strauss: 'Middle overs cost England'
Published: 20 September 2010

Andrew Strauss lamented the stagnation of England's run chase in the middle overs as they lost to Pakistan by 38 runs at Lord’s.

Strauss, together with fellow opener Steven Davies, put on 113 for the first wicket as Pakistan struggled to contain the England batsmen.

Davies then fell for 49, clean bowled by Saeed Ajmal, and from there England’s scoring faltered.

Strauss was the third man to fall, caught at backward-point by Fawad Alam off Shoaib Akhtar for the top-score of 68. England then lost all ten wickets for just one more run than he and Davies had mustered together.

The 33-year-old England skipper spoke of his disappointment at the way his side's batting had stuttered as the innings progressed, but praised the efforts of Pakistan’s bowlers:

He said: "Of course I’m disappointed that we didn’t go on.

"We got off to a fantastic start, and we looked as if we had the game under a reasonable amount of control but we weren’t able to continue that momentum through the middle period

"During that middle period we would have done better to stick to the run rate required but we need to look at where we went wrong.

"Again, Pakistan bowled exceptionally well with the old ball but we’re very disappointed to have lost the game."

England appeared to have Pakistan in check during the first innings, Graeme Swann in particular excelling with 4-37 in his ten over spell.

Pakistan's Abdul Razzaq turned the game on its head in the final overs, smashing 44 from only 20 balls, including five fours from the last five balls of the innings from Tim Bresnan.